


A Ship of Fools

by savvyliterate



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 04:02:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14393868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savvyliterate/pseuds/savvyliterate
Summary: His hands slipped beneath her shirt and his kiss, soft and heated, made her realize that nothing she had shared with anyone before was like this. It was like every other man Lorelai kissed in her life had been store-brand ice cream, and Luke was Ben & Jerry's





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an advent fic written for #agilmorechristmas at Al's Pancake World on Tumblr. The prompt I selected was: "AU where Lorelai doesn't miss her paint date with Luke or they kiss behind the counter"

Her life was a terrific, unqualified mess.

Lorelai stared into the squat mug of coffee she held, swirling around the dredges she had downed like the martinis she consumed just a couple hours earlier. Her heels were kicked somewhere under the table, her feet actively hating her. Who loathed her more, her feet or Straub Hayden? She couldn't quite decide. She decided on Straub. Her feet would eventually get over what she did to them. Straub hadn't even begun to let go of a 17-year grudge.

She took measured breaths. Breathe in, breathe out. If she concentrated on breathing, she wouldn't start crying. She already looked out of place in the coffee shop with her in Friday Night Dinner clothes, limping in the door because she had the bright idea to walk a mile in 3-inch heels. Breathe in, breathe out. In and out. If she concentrated on breathing, she wouldn't reflect on her father reminding her of all her faults, of Chris doing his very best to recreate the night of Rory's conception, of Straub's insults, of her own of President Bush. Well … that one she didn't really regret. Still.

In. Out.

Lorelai felt the gush of wind as the door open, and seconds later, a chair was pulled out across from her. She didn't bother to look up. She knew who it was.

In. Out.

"Are you OK?" Luke's voice was soft and concerned, and it was the last thing she needed. Why couldn't he simply yell at her for dragging him away from the diner, for making him come to Hartford to rescue her? Hell, why had she called him in the first place? Why didn't she call Sookie or even Babette?

"Lorelai." His voice was a bit harsher, and it forced her back into the present. "Are you OK?" he repeated.

"You have the pleasure of sitting across from Connecticut's biggest disappointment." She downed the rest of the coffee. "I would say the country or in history, but then I remember that  _The Phantom Menace_  exists, and there's not a bigger disappointment than that."

"You are not a disappointment," Luke said immediately, and the show of loyalty undid her more than the choicest insults from Straub Hayden's mouth.

"Maybe you should go to my parents' house and remind them of that." Lorelai shook her head before he could reply, because he  _would_  do it. "No, don't. I'm a rat for making you do this." She leaped to her feet, forgetting that they were staging a rebellion and immediately stumbled. Her hand slipped, knocking the coffee mug over. "Damn it."

"I've got it." Luke grabbed napkins from a dispenser and quickly mopped up the mess with the ease of years of expertise. He frowned at her feet. "Where's your shoes?"

Reluctantly, she slid them back on and tried that whole business of standing again. When he stepped toward her, she shook her head. She had to get outside on her own two feet. Throwing her shoulders back, she walked slowly to the door and the truck that waited outside to take them home.

* * *

" _Hi, it's me. Lorelai. Your budding Michaelangelo, destined to paint murals on your ceiling. Hey, listen …"_

" _Something's come up."_

" _Yes. Well, no. But, yes. It's just … can you pick me up, please?"_

" _Are you OK? Where are you?"_

" _This coffee shop about a mile from my parents' house. I'll give you the address."_

" _Where's Rory?"_

" _Oh, with her dad. They're probably back in Stars Hollow already."_

" _I'll be there in 30 minutes."_

* * *

Interstate signs, Lorelai thought, were funny. They went by with swoops, counting down miles to the nearest exit like you were approaching some sort of deadline. Berlin Road exit, one mile. Ooh, there was a McDonald's there and a Burger King. Maybe she could persuade Luke to stop for a milkshake … and there it went, swooping by, next exit in the distance. Country Club Road. Park and Ride and a state police post. Boring.

"How far did you walk in those?"

The question was casual, but she could hear the concern in it. It was the same tone of voice he had on the phone, when he rescued her from the coffee shop, when his lips had covered her and he had lowered her to the aged floor of the diner that had been his father's hardware shop. When his hands slipped beneath her shirt and his kiss, soft and heated, made her realize that nothing she had shared with any man before was like this. It was like every other man she kissed in her life had been store-brand ice cream, and Luke was Ben & Jerry's. And now she wanted ice cream in addition to the milkshake.

"Lorelai." This was with a hint of annoyance now, more familiar territory. She battled back her craving for ice cream and more kisses.

"You know, I thought it was time to break the Guiness record of long-distance walking in heels." She shot him the ghost of a sunny smile, and it was returned with a stone-faced glare. He most certainly wasn't being the Ben & Jerry of guys now.

Luke didn't press further, and before Lorelai realized it, the truck was idling outside of the house. The Jeep sat out front, the lights blazing from the living room. She gripped the handle, but the door refused to open. It wasn't that the door itself was broken, just her ability to open doors - especially when it meant walking into her house and once again facing the disaster that had been her entire night. Rory would want to talk, and Chris would want to talk, and for the first time in her life, Lorelai  _didn't_  want to talk.

So she shot her most winning smile at Luke. "Hey, don't welch out on the painting night, mister! We've gotta get it done before Taylor hires half of Martha Stewart Living and lays siege to the diner."

"You can't paint like that. Geez, Lorelai, you can barely walk." Luke started to throw the gearshift into park, but she quickly covered his hand. The touch of his skin, roughened knuckles from years of manual labor, felt like an electric shock.

"Can we just go to the diner? Please?" Her voice was quiet, without the extra dose of wheedling she liked to insert when she felt like she was about to get her way with Luke. She stared at her hand atop his, absently comparing the skin tones. "We don't have to paint. Just … I don't want to go home right now."

He didn't say anything, just stared at her for a long few seconds before shifting the truck back into drive and easing away from the curb.

* * *

_Their friendship, which always seemed to be teetering on the edge of 'what if,' was filled with so many near misses that Lorelai wasn't surprised that she and Luke were kissing. It was the fact that he had been the one to cross that hurdle, to shyly press his lips to hers, that shocked her to the core. He was sweetly hesitant, like the very first kiss she ever had. But she quickly made it clear that not only did she want his kiss, she craved it._

_She would be content to never stop kissing him, but there was the whole fact that Rory was at home and Taylor was pounding on the window. She almost wish Taylor could see them, the way Luke was ranged on top of her, arms braced against the floor as the kiss went from hesitant-sweet to all-consuming heat. Lorelai thought she had experienced passion with Max, when she had broken her extremely long drought with him a few months earlier. This was entirely in a different orbit._

_It felt like coming home._

* * *

They argued over him carrying her up the stairs, but he finally let her go ahead of him, his hand at the small of her back to both guide and steady her when she stumbled. She started toward the couch, but he gently steered her toward the shelving unit and the bed that lay behind it. The duvet and the pillows were well-worn, the quilt ancient and hand-made.

"Whoa, we've gone from zero to home run in less than 24 hours," Lorelai joked.

Luke scowled at her and pointed to the bed. "Shoes off and lie down. It'll be easier this way."

"I take it you're not about to ravish me."

He rolled his eyes and disappeared into the bathroom as she toed off the heels once more. She winced at the blisters on the balls of her feet and her ankles. The next few days were going to be miserable.

Luke came back out with medicine and bandages, setting them on the nightstand before jerking his head at the bathroom. "I don't want to treat these and you suddenly need to pee, then we have to do it all over again. Go now."

This time, Lorelai rolled her eyes. "Yes, dad," she said sarcastically, but took the advice. She took an extra couple of minutes to scrub her makeup off, stuck using the bar soap he had next to the sink. She groaned at the tear tracks her mascara had made and was extra ruthless with her cheeks. She could already feel the pull of dry skin from the lack of moisturizer, but there was nothing she could do about it.

* * *

" _This man was at Rory's birthday party, he came to the hospital with you, he's the male lead in every story you tell, you go to the diner every single day. I've seen the way he looks at you, the way you look at him. I'm not a fool."_

* * *

They had kissed eight days earlier. They had kissed the living daylights out of each other, and a good bit of the nightlights as well. They hadn't spoken about it since. They alluded to it somewhat. Lorelai tried to pressure Luke into admitting he thought she had summoned him for a booty call, which had been at the forefront of her mind she wasn't going to lie, but instead they had gone Stella-hunting. They didn't speak about it when buying paint a few days ago.

But Lorelai thought about it. She thought about it all the time. It haunted every spare second she had to think, invaded her dreams every night. Rory's father was sleeping on the couch, and she was upstairs having torrid dreams about her closest male friend.

Luke snagged the other pillow from next to Lorelai and used it to prop up her feet. He covered one foot with a wet washcloth, then lightly rubbed a dry one over it. Carefully, he dabbed Neosporin over one of the blisters, then reached for a roll of moleskin and a bandage. She watched as he cut off a piece, then cut a hole into the middle.

"So, indulging in your inner Mark Greene?" she teased.

"I'm not gonna pretend to know which show you're talking about."

"Everyone's seen  _ER_." When he sent an arched eyebrow in her direction, she huffed. "Everyone except TV-adverse diner owners."

He finished laying the moleskin over the blister, then carefully applied a bandage, tenting the middle to allow air. "I ran track in high school. The coach drilled it into our heads, said he refused to have us out of a meet because we were stupid and brought on an infection from a popped blister."

Intrigued, Lorelai pushed herself onto her elbows. If her mental image of Luke in short shorts was anything like the reality, then it was utterly  _delicious_. "No way! I want to see you in track shorts."

"No," he said shortly.

"Fine. Let me know when the stick that's crawled up your ass is dislodged."

"I have a right to have that stick jammed up my ass when I find out you walked a mile in those damn heels." Luke tossed down the scissors after cutting more moleskin into place. "You're upset, you're hurt, you were crying, and it's taking everything in me not to go over to your house and punch that guy."

"Punch that …  _Chris_?"

He pushed to his feet and began to pace the space in front of the bed. "Who else did this to you?"

"It was a potent combination of him, his dad, and my dad. Though out of the three, Chris was the least offensive." Lorelai worried her lip and blurted. "He did kiss me. He kissed me and he tried to get me to recreate Rory's conception on the balcony. Do you want to know why I didn't?"

Luke had drawn to a halt next to the shelf divider. "It's none of my business who you choose to be with."

"Is that why you didn't bring up the kiss when we were buying paint?" When he didn't respond, her voice dropped to a whisper. "God, I'm so stupid."

Stupid, stupid Lorelai, thinking that there had been something in that kiss, that maybe they were finally going to explore whatever this thing was that lay between them. She thought there was something there, something between them, but clearly it was all one-sided. Tears burned, and she looked out the window. They had been somewhat shy and hesitant around each other during their paint-buying expedition, but when the kiss hadn't been brought up, she didn't push it. Then Chris had shown up and everything had gone straight to hell.

Lorelai never knew how badly she wanted Luke to want her back until that very instance.

She heard a swear that caused her head to snap around and she realize two things at the exact same time: the first was that her inner monologue had at some point become an outer one, and her thoughts had spilled from her in a rambling, incoherent mess, blaming the entire situation on herself.

The second was that Luke very much did want her, because he had stormed back to the bed, had pulled her into his arms, and was kissing her as if his next breath, his very existence, his utter sanity depended on the connection between them.


	2. Chapter 2

Luke broke the kiss, shoving away from the bed so fast that he nearly lost his balance. He couldn't bring himself to look at Lorelai as he escaped the apartment, running down the stairs as if the hounds of hell were chasing after him. Granted, his own personal demons were quite sufficient in this case.

He pushed through the curtain into the main room of the diner and braced himself on the counter. Dragging in ragged breath after ragged breath, he ordered his unruly body to calms down. He muttered baseball stats, recited the day's weather, recounted everything Kirk had done that day to piss him off. By the time that was done, he was reasonably sure he could walk around without doing permanent damage to himself. Luke surveyed the organized mess the dining room had become. Tables and chairs were all shoved to the center of the room with dropcloths lining the walls. An array of rollers and an open can of paint lay near one of the walls, hastily set aside when Lorelai had called him.

With a sigh, he picked up one of the rollers and doused it with paint. Might as well get it over with.

He painted with long, broad strokes, channeling his want into the efficient movements. Only he could walk away from a willing woman, especially when it was Lorelai Gilmore. But he would be seven kinds of asshole if he took advantage of her like this - emotional wrecked over what the men in her life, including him apparently, had done to her. Her feet were torn up, and despite his first aid, she was going to have a very miserable time of it over the next few days. She would be better off spending the entire weekend on the couch, watching the movies she loved. He would make sure she and Rory were fed.

Then, maybe then, he would ask her on a date. Luke closed his eyes, ignoring the paint dripping from the roller onto the dropcloth. No, Lorelai hadn't been the stupid one. That title belonged solely to him. She had been wrong. He hadn't stopped thinking about kissing her. It dogged his every waking thought. Fantasizing about what would have happened if they hadn't stopped had been the only way he could sleep at night. She never said a word, so of course she regretted it. Right? Apparently she hadn't. She wanted more. Oh god, so did he. For the first time in forever, so did he.

Shaking his head, Luke plotted out a course of action as he applied more paint to the walls. He should had asked her on a date the night Sookie and Jackson were on their first date, when Mrs. Kim had come barging in. Lorelai had led him on the next morning, but he had chickened out, too afraid she would say no. Despite what Miss Patty and Babette liked to whisper about him, he wasn't good at dating. Not at all. Rachel had come out of left field when he was in high school, and in a way, she was a lot like Lorelai when it came to the whole take-charge manner of things. He had dated a few women in the interim periods between Rachel, but not in the past five years. Not since Rachel had sailed out of his life, and a single mom and her precocious daughter waltzed in shortly thereafter.

Luke nearly banged his head on the wall. There was another reason to be careful. He didn't want to be all over her like a monk newly released from a vow of celibacy. Lorelai deserved dinner and careful wooing, not him slobbering all over her because he hadn't gotten laid in a long time. He had to think with his head - the one above his belt. This wasn't going to be a fly-by-night thing. He looked at her and Rory and saw forever, and for once, he wanted to reach for it.

The hair on the back of his neck rose, and he turned to see her sitting in the one chair he had left out on the floor. Averting his gaze, he focused on his work. "You should be laying down."

"I should be helping you."

"Not with your feet like that."

"Who says I have to stand?" Lorelai pointed to the baseboards. "Those require sitting. I can do those easily enough."

Luke didn't have the energy to fight her. He absently waved at the can of paint she had selected for the baseboard, then froze when she hobbled into his view. "What the hell are you wearing?" he snarled.

She stood before him dressed in one of his older flannels, which hung down to her knees. The sleeves had been rolled back. He was pretty damn sure she wasn't wearing anything except her underwear beneath it.

"What, I'm not painting in that dress," she replied. "I figured you wouldn't mind. This one was shoved in the back of your closet."

Lorelai dropped to her knees as Luke fought the urge to order her to take off the damn shirt. Except then there was the whole nakedness thing. She was right. She didn't have any clothes suited for painting. He grabbed his bucket and roller and moved to another wall, placing his back squarely to her. He couldn't look at her. He couldn't even visualize what she looked like beneath his flannel. His grip tightened on the roller as that other head decided its needs were more important than logic. He fought back his libido by remembering how pissed off he was at Taylor for forcing them into this situation to begin with.

They painted in silence for more than an hour, every so often the beams from a passing car shining through the gaps in the closed blinds. The feelings singing through his blood were new, and for the first time since Rachel had skipped town years earlier, Luke allowed himself to dream. Just a little. Not too much. Enough to distract him.

Lorelai huffed, and he made the mistake of glancing over at the sound. The shirt had ridden up her thighs, and the way she sat exposed just enough of her panties to make him want to drool. She absently tugged the shirt down into place, but too late, it was seared onto his brain. It was a good thing his body instinctively knew what to do, because he sure as hell wasn't actually focused on painting.

"You do realize you just painted one of the window sills," Lorelai said, amused.

Luke froze, groaned. Not only had he painting the sill, but part of the window as well. "Aw, hell."

"Mind elsewhere, Burger Boy?"

Deep in the gutter, thank you very much.

"I called Rory," Lorelai said quietly. "Told her I was over here painting like I promised, that I would be home late. She wanted to ask. I could tell. But I could hear Chris in the background." She sighed, dropped her brush in the tray. "He's doing it again, you know."

"What's that?" Luke searched for solvent to clean the windows before the paint dried.

"Making promises he can't keep." Lorelai explained how Chris tried to buy Rory an expensive dictionary, only to have the credit card decline at the last minute. "That happened once, when Rory was six." She laughed bitterly. "God, we were nearly arrested." She drew her knees up, giving him that enticing peek beneath the shirt again. "We went out to California to see him and went to Disneyland. Rory really wanted this giant lollipop. It was nearly as big as her head. But Chris' card bounced, and Rory had already eaten part of the candy. So I used mine. It sent me into overdraft, but we weren't thrown into Disney jail."

"Aw geez." Luke forced his unruly thoughts back into a dark corner of his mind. It was easy, because now he wanted to throttle Christopher.

"Should be used to it by now," Lorelai muttered.

"He's your kid's dad. For her sake, you want to think the best of him." Luke sighed. "I couldn't do that with my sister."

Lorelai blinked at him. "You have a sister?"

He shrugged. "Older one. Though everyone thinks she's younger because she sure as hell acted like it. She finished high school pregnant, had the kid instead of going off to college. He's a month or two older than Rory."

"Where is she now?"

"New York, last I checked. I haven't heard from her in two, close to three years. She does that every so often. Calls in long enough to make sure I'm breathing and ask for money. She wants to go her own way, doesn't want to come back here. She doesn't get why I don't want to leave."

Lorelai smiled wistfully. "I always wanted a sister. Sometimes, I think I just wanted someone else to have my parents' attention. Or a fellow soldier in the war."

Luke hesitated, then put his roller down. He motioned toward the stairs and waited for Lorelai to put the top back on her paint bucket. He did the same for his and followed her upstairs, checking to make sure she didn't put too much weight on her feet. She limped to the bed as he rummaged in the closet. He sat next to her, opening the book to old black and white images.

"My mom and dad," he said, tapping at a couple featuring a man with his own features. "They're standing in front of this store. Dad tore down the building that was here and built new. They'd just gotten married, so technically, you could say Liz was in this photo too."

Lorelai smirked. "How many months after they got married was she born?"

"Six." Luke grinned back at her.

"May I?" she took the album and studied the faces of the people. "Oh my god, is that Taylor?" she pointed at a very somber-looking boy in a group photo.

"Yeah, my folks and his used to be close. Taylor even baby-sat me and Liz."

Lorelai laughed. "Really?"

"Let's not talk about it," Luke muttered and she flipped ahead.

"Was it as horrible as it sounds?"

"Worse."

"Aw!" Lorelai cooed, landing on a picture of a toddler girl and an infant. "It's you! Look at little baby Luke!"

"Geez." Luke felt the blush crawling over his face and tried to remember if he had successfully burned all the baby-in-the-bath photos of himself that were in there when he inherited the album.

Lorelai flipped through his school years and paused at the first picture of just him, Liz, and his dad. His mother's funeral. "How old were you when your mom died?"

"Ten." Luke found himself staring at his hands, the lump in his throat that always seemed to be there when someone brought up his mother in full force. "Cervical cancer, though I didn't know that was why she died until Dad was sick. I just knew she was very sick, then she was gone. It happened pretty fast. It took us years before we figured out where Mom stashed the coupons."

She scooted closer to him. "Luke …"

"Don't feel sorry for me," he ordered. "We got through it." But he saw that she didn't quite believe him, and he wasn't sure he believed himself. "Well, Liz never seemed to quite get over it. Dad tried, but it was like he couldn't reach her. Then she got pregnant, and the guy who knocked her up just went out for diapers and never came back. They had gotten this run-down place over in Litchfield. Dad, Liz, and I waited for hours. I stayed overnight with her and the baby. Jess. That's his name. Anyhow, the guy never called, never wrote. Liz hooked up with someone else and moved away. She didn't even come back for Dad's funeral. Couldn't afford it."

Lorelai's hand found his and squeezed.

"So, I hear from her every so often. I keep asking for her number and she won't give it to me. Keeps telling me I'll just worry about her and she'll call if she needs me. I went to New York once and tried looking for her. She was in the phone book but had moved by the time I found the place." Luke shook his head and closed the album. "So that's it. That's my family." His family. His mess of a life, where he couldn't even keep track of Liz and Jess.

She leaned into him, and need surged through him. He wanted to shove her away, hating how vulnerable he was feeling. But she had to know what she was walking into, and if she still wanted him, then all the blinders would be off.

Luke felt her fingers on his chin, tracing over the stubble before using two fingers to turn his face toward her. Her lips against his were soft, but slightly raw from their earlier kissing. Lorelai took the album from his lap and set it aside, replacing it with herself as she straddled him. His hands landed on her waist, and he groaned into her mouth as the thin barrier of her panties rubbed against the bulge in his jeans.

"You've seen my family," Lorelai whispered as she pulled away and gave him a wry smile. "The Gilmore Family Mess in all its glory. Yet, for some reason, you apparently still want me."

How could he not want her? Luke kissed her again, cradling the back of her head as he channeled all the need that had built up over five years into that kiss. His hands bunched up the flannel she wore, pulling it up and up until she lifted her arms and the offensive piece of clothing had been flung across the room. The bra and panties she had worn beneath her dress matched, good pieces of underwear that made her look beautiful and nearly untouchable. Her hands were behind her back, undoing the clasp and flinging away the bra before he could make a move, and she shoved him.

He landed on his back with a soft thud as she unbuttoned his top shirt. Her hands were slightly shaky, and he wondered if she was as nervous as he was. He shrugged out of the shirts, and she traced a finger over the tattoo on his arm. Leaning down, she kissed it, and his hips bucked. He held her by the waist, fingers digging into her skin as he fought not to completely lose it on the feel of her lips against his skin alone. He wasn't going to last five minutes, hell not even five seconds at this rate. Determined to make it good before he embarrassed himself, he coaxed her forward to press his lips to her breast. He rubbed the small of her back as she whimpered and encouraged him, her hips rocking over his again and again as his control simply slid away.

"Please, oh please," she begged, and he managed to break the kiss long enough to press his forehead to hers.

"Are you sure?" he asked in a ragged whisper. "Are you absolutely, 100 percent sure?"

She rubbed her nose against his. "I haven't been more sure about anything in my life."

Her eyes bore into his, and he searched her face for any sign of fear, of the slightest hint of recrimination that could come back to bite them in the ass. But her eyes were clear and dark with arousal. Giving her a swift kiss, he eased her off him just enough to undo his jeans.

Her hand slid in as soon as he lowered the zipper, and he fell back on the bed with a groan as her hand closed over him, then carefully freed him. "I really hope you have a condom."

Not only did he have a condom, but it was even current. He fumbled for his wallet and waved her hand away when she tried to take it from him. There was no way she could keep touching him without completely exploding, and then it would be mortifying for both of them. He eased her hips over his, letting her guide him into her. He closed his eyes, biting back a moan as she lowered herself onto him.

"Oh god," she whispered. "Oh my god. This feels ..."

He couldn't even speak. His lungs suddenly seemed incapable of functioning. She tentatively rolled her hips as he thrust up. A second thrust took him even deeper, his fingers digging into her waist again.

He fought every instinct to roll her under him, remembering just in time that this position was far better for her abused feet. It took them a few precious minutes to find a rhythm that was just right for them both. He ached and he ached and he could feel the last shreds of his control simply slip away. It had been far too long for him, and he had yearned for her forever. He was chanting something over and over like a prayer, then realized it was her name. His eyes slid close as his release shuddered through him, his breath catching on a broken sob.

Slowly, he came back to Earth, worried and more than a little guilty she hadn't reached orgasm along with him. Her gaze was solemn, and he realized that she had held back to watch him. She leaned in for a kiss, and this time he did gently turn her over, making sure not to jar her feet. He slid out of her, kissing his way down her belly. His fingers brushed over the faded stretch marks, her battle scars from pregnancy, then he moved lower until he was between her thighs.

It didn't take much. He slid two fingers into her, gently curling them as he flicked his tongue over her clit. Then she bucked hard, nearly throwing him as she found release. He kept stroking her until the orgasm passed and she collapsed to the bed gasping. Pressing one last kiss there, he sat back on his haunches. For the rest of his life, he would remember how she looked at that exact moment, as she lay sated on his bed and smiling at him.

* * *

The sun was high in the air when Luke swung the truck to the curb outside the Crap Shack. He cut the engine and got out.

"What're you doing?" Lorelai asked as he opened her door.

"You can't walk up the path like that. You can't even get your shoes back on."

Her feet had swelled during the night, the blisters growing large and painful. He had reapplied the dressings before they left the diner, but she needed to stay off her feet as much as possible. This thing between them was so new that he didn't know where the line between them now stood. She had let him help her out to the truck, but that putz's car still sat in the driveway, so of course she hesitated now.

"You can't carry me in." Lorelai huffed at his scowl. "It's going to cause more issues than it'll solve. We'll do this the easy way." She dug out her cell phone and Luke heard the house phone ring inside. "Rory? Bring Mommy her flip-flops, please? I'm outside with Luke. Thanks." She dropped the phone back in her purse. "See? Easy peasy."

"Fine. Just stay off your feet today." Luke glanced toward the door as Rory came out, flip-flops in hand. Lorelai's ex also stood in the door, glaring at them. "I'll bring you and Rory some food later."

"Oooh, I didn't even have to beg this time." She toyed with a button on his flannel. "Bring some for yourself too."

"Will do." Luke started to lean in to kiss her, then hesitated. Rory didn't have a clue, and he didn't want her to find out this way.

Lorelai made the decision for him, tugging him in for a quick kiss. "Thank you," she murmured against his lips.

Rory winged an eyebrow. "Well, there's a development I missed."

"I'll catch you up later," Lorelai promised as he and Rory helped her down from the truck.

"You better," Rory threatened and waved to him as she looped an arm around her mother's waist.

Luke watched the girls limp inside together and turned his back on Chris when the other man shot a glare in his direction. He strode back to the truck, not sparing a glance back at the house as he drove off. Nothing could kill Luke's good mood, not even  _him_. For once, the future looked pretty damn bright, and he planned to enjoy every second of it.


End file.
